The Nightingale and The Rose Paper PDF

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Summary

This paper includes a summary on the story, "The Nightingale and The Rose." It explains the story by Oscar Wilde. It explains how each character shows their own approach to love and what they do with it. The three types of love described throughout this story are: sacrificial love, selfish love, an...

Description

The Nightingale and The Rose In The Nightingale and The Rose written by Oscar Wilde, a Nightingale overhears a student being sorrowful about a girl he wishes to dance with but he needs a red rose. Hearing this the Nightingale searched nearby trees to find one who could produce a red rose. Finding one, the tree tells the Nightingale that he cannot grow a suitable rose but there is a way for the tree to produce a rose that will cost the Nightingale her life. The Nightingale sacrifices herself because she believes love to be more important than life itself. That next morning the student finds the rose that the Nightingale produced with its life and brings it to girl. The girl, after being offered the rose, rejects the students offer due to the rose not matching her dress and another suiter offering her jewelry. The Nightingale and The Rose written by Oscar Wilde is a short story displaying three different ways of love a sacrificial love, a selfish love, and materialistic love. The Nightingale, through her actions, shows passion and true love. The Nightingale tenaciously searched for a tree that could produce a red rose, despite not having any attachment to the student. The Nightingale kept getting turned away by the nearby trees and sent in different directions until she found one that could make a red rose. When the Nightingale flew to the rose tree by the fountain, she was turned away because the tree only made yellow roses. However, if the Nightingale were to sing by moonlight and bleed into the thorn of the tree, it would produce a red rose. The Nightingale sang through the night until she lost her life to the rose. The Nightingale shows selflessness when accepting death as a fate worthy of love. “Death is a great price to pay for a red rose. Yet love is better than life, and what is the heart of the bird compared to the heart of a man?” (paragraph 9). The student, on the other hand, shows another side of love through misery and

selfishness. After retrieving the rose from the tree the student believes that he can now get the girl. “You said you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose (paragraph 18).” She rejected him because she was afraid that the rose would not go with her dress and another suiter was already taking her. The student was upset and called the girl ungrateful and denounced love as impractical. This shows the students selfishness due to the fact that when he does not get what he wanted he gives up on love entirely. Additionally, the girl shows a more materialistic approach to love. Firstly, the girl said that she will only dance with the student if he gives her an object of value. Although once he gets that object she rejects him. The reason being that another man, the prince’s nephew, sent her an object of higher value. Earlier she also mentioned that the flower would not go with her dress which shows that she is more perceptive to matricidal value as love. The Nightingale was shown through its sacrifice that it was portraying a true love, a sacrificial love. The student shown through desire and reaction that he is a selfish lover and thus portrays that. Lastly, the girl shows a materialistic love due to her only accepting dances if she were to be given something of value. Through the use of the three characters, Oscar Wilde accurately displays three different versions of love....